Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Click on the above chart to see a larger copy, download, and/or print a copy.

﻿﻿﻿﻿

Dallas ISD set a 20 year graduation rate record in 2010. The high school which contibuted the most to this progress, out of the 40+ high schools in Dallas ISD, is also the high school which received the large majority of School Archive Project students. DISD had an 9 percentage point graduation rate increase from 2007 to 2010. (Improvements are summarized in a 12-13-10 opinion piece published in the Dallas Morning News as “A teacher's report card on Michael Hinojosa.”) However, Sunset's graduation rate went up 25 percentage points during the same 2007-2010 period within whichDISD improved "only" 9 percentage points.

The School Archive Project has gone from starting in one school in 2005 to now being in 7 schools at the end of 2010: two high schools, four middle schools, and one elementary school.

The money donated to install ten School Archive Project vaults is almost gone. The Dallas Educational Foundation (http://www.dallaschamber.org/index.aspx?id=CurrentFundedPrograms ) needs more donors to replenish the School Archive Project Fund. This fund provides a $1,500 grant to each DISD school starting a School Archive Project. Over 3,000 DISD students a year are now writing letters to themselves planning for their own futures. These letters are placed by the students into the vault bolted to the floor in their school lobby where the letters stay for the next decade. This 3,000 number needs to grow ten-fold so that more DISD students are actively involved in documenting plans for their own futures.

Sunset High School, which has received the majority of School Archive Project students since 2005, has gone from one of the lowest average graduation rates within DISD, only 34% (2000 to 2007), to one of 60% for the Class of 2010, which is over 11 percentage points higher than the DISD average. Sunset will have a graduation rate of 70% by 2013 based on current patterns reflected in their spreadsheet below. Sunset High School received a dynamic principal, Tony Tovar, about the time that the School Archive Project started. He gathered many talented staff and well designed programs into Sunset, including starting a high school version of the Archive Project with their own vault in 2009. The other middle school feeding into Sunset, Greiner Middle School, started it's own Archive Project the summer of 2009 as well. (Click on the "DallasISD Graduation Rate Progress" chart above to enlarge it and study the details of the dramatic progress happening, especially since 2009!)

The most significant modification of the Archive Project happened in 2010. Parents now start the letter writing process for their child by writing a letter to their child. They write about their dreams for their child. The student then reads and uses this letter to help write their own letter to themselves about their dreams and plans for the future. Both letters go into the same self-addressed envelope that the student then places into the vault for the next decade. It is certain these 10-year class reunions will be even more powerful for former students due to the priceless additional letter from their parents that will be waiting, with their own letter, in the School Archive.

The Archive Project progress has been accelerating and expanding. The 60% graduation rate is cause for celebration! Now to go far beyond it!

The dedication of the volunteer staff running the School Archive Projects in each school is to be acknowledged and honored. Each school has from one teacher to a team of such volunteers who run the Archive Project. They alone allow for the low $1 per student Archive Project cost.

We still need to get university-based research started into the validity of the dramatic achievements that appear to be happening in association with the School Archive Project. Hopefully such research will start in 2011 as the number of students reached by School Archive Projects continues to increase.

Please make a donation to the Dallas Educational Foundation if you would like to help more schools start a School Archive Project. This can be done at http://www.dallaschamber.org/index.aspx?id=DallasEducationFoundation. You may also simply contact your local school and offer to directly finance their starting a School Archive Project. A 500-pound vault can be delivered and installed for about $1,100 to function as the time-capsule. The school only needs one or more volunteer teachers to run the project, teachers who would love to encourage student writing and planning for their own futures. Teachers who would most love to see their students again in 10 years are recommended.

Friday, December 3, 2010

A major error in the definition of “dropout factory” is being made by many news organizations across the US leading to significant errors in judgement regarding actual progress. That error mistakenly included in the "Dropout Factory" definition the last of the four critical steps high school students make on their way to graduation, the move from 12th grade to actually getting a diploma. The "Dropout Factory" definition only counts the first three moves: 9th to 10th, 10th to 11th, and 11th to 12th. It does not count the move to graduation as graduation data is very difficult to consistently secure on a national basis. This fact, combined with monumental increases in the Texas 12th grade dropout rate since 2006 due to raising graduation standards, is the reason that Texas, while leading the nation in loosing 77 "Dropout Factories," still had a decrease in the Texas graduation rate of 0.4%.

In Dallas this error was made by the Dallas Morning News on 12-4-10. That error can be found online with the posting of “Hits and Misses” . That posting includes the following statements: "The state has considerably fewer "dropout factories" than eight years ago. That's the result released this week by America's Promise Alliance and several other organizations that have studied dropout patterns across the country. In 2002, 240 Texas high schools qualified as dropout factories, meaning that 60 percent or fewer of their students graduated."

The "dropout factory" term was defined John Hopkins University in their historic 2007 study. It does NOT refer to schools wherein "60 percent or fewer of their students graduated." It only counts students who make it from 9th grade to 12th grade, not those who graduate.

On page 24 of the “Building a Grad Nation report," linked from http://www.americaspromise.org/Our-Work/Grad-Nation/Building-a-Grad-Nation.aspx , the definition of “dropout factory” is clearly given. Graduation data is much harder to collect on a national scale and therefore was not used in the “dropout factory” definition. Instead that definition is based on the "promotion rate." That is the percentage of 9th grade enrollment reflected in the 12th grade enrollment three years later.

For Texas, in 2002, 2003 and 2004, almost all seniors graduated. This change in definition by the Dallas Morning News makes little difference in such years. Only 0.7% of the original 9th grade enrollment were missing for the Class of 2002. Those years the 12th grade enrollment and the number of diplomas given out in Texas were almost equal. In 2004 Texas actually gave out about 800 more diplomas that it had 12th graders listed as enrolled. Those are the numbers reflected in the TEA (Texas Education Agency) data base. (See this history and data in a spreadsheet of Texas State Enrollment by Grade just over half way down the page at http://www.studentmotivation.org/DallasISD.htm.)

By 2008 in Texas this situation had dramatically changed. Texas had wisely implemented more meaningful graduation requirements. By 2008 the percentage of senior enrollment “missing at graduation” had gone up over 10-fold from 0.7% to 7.85%! Thus 21,485 Texas seniors of the 273,606 seniors in the Class of 2008 were “missing at graduation.” These dropouts are not counted by the “dropout factory” definition erroneously being used by the Dallas Morning News and other media. (Statistical data used in these calculations is secured from the Texas Education Agency web site at http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/adhocrpt/Standard_Reports.html .) That is why this newest America's Promise study reports on page 27 that, in spite of Texas leading the nation with 77 fewer "dropout factories," Texas had a graduation rate that went down 0.4% from 2002 to 2008, instead of going up.

Yes, Texas is still making progress. We now have more accurate data available. We also must have the more demanding standards for graduation that were implemented after 2004. But we are not making progress when the media are less than precise in the way they report on that progress and the data available. We must practice the same accuracy we want our students to master. The Dallas Morning News needs to correct this error.

It needs to be emphasized that this error by the Dallas Morning News is repeated across the US by several other news organizations. Too many news media staff are not familiar with the definitions involved. This is another issue we face in the battle fighting very real, and very high, dropout rates across the nation.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Dallas ISD progress lowering the 9th grade bulge is about to go below that rate for the rest of Texas. If you measure the 9th grade bulge as the percentage increase in enrollment from 8th to 9th grade, then Dallas ISD has gone from a bulge of 41% to one that is 11.9% this year. During this same time period the same measurement for the entire state has gone from 19.9% to 14.1% as of last year. This years Texas measurement is not yet available. Here is the chart reflecting that progress:﻿

The above chart shows that DISD may be about to surpass the rest of the state if you look at the enrollment by grade records for the entire state of Texas.

Questions, and especially challenges about these conclusions are welcome. If anyone wants to see the spreadsheets used to generate this chart please email bbetzen@aol.com. The spreadsheets used to generate the numbers used in the above chart will gladly be shared. A critical reading of this information is needed. All the original data comes either from the TEA web site or from the Dallas ISD web site. It was placed into spreadsheets and the above numbers calculated. Such charts should be created for all schools and school districts in Texas. It would significantly increase public confidence in what our schools are doing, or else point out the problems we must face eventually, with or without such a warning.

Sunday, October 31, 2010

The plans for the 21st Century City Conference, on November 12, 2010 at Dallas City Hall, paint a wonderful view of our city, but leave out our schools!

As you search online and read the press releases for the conference, they build on the statement on the Conference web site: "The 21st Century City Conference addresses the enormous shift taking place in the way we build out our cities. We seek a more humane city, one that allows for the complexities of diverse lifestyles while offering serene and quiet places that feed the soul. We want a city that is vibrant and alive and we want, once again, to learn from nature."

That sounds great, but how do we prepare the people who will be our citizens for most of the 21st Century?

An atmosphere for planning the next century within which such an omission of public education happens may help explain why less than 50% of the full Dallas ISD 9th grade enrollment are ever represented in the number of diplomas given out four years later. This atmosphere is not new. This graduation rate has been below 50% well over 20 years! The good news is that in spite of it the percentage of those graduating DISD schools is improving! It almost broke 50% with the Class of 2010, and will break that 20+ year old barrier with the Class of 2011!

While improvement is good to see, we still have a major crisis. It is a complex crisis that at least needs to be mentioned at any "21st Century City Conference" about Dallas. These students, and the many who drop out of school, are the future taxpayers, workers, inmates, and leaders in Dallas. We need fewer inmates and more workers and leaders.

Remember, only a small fraction of that minority who actually graduate DISD high schools are prepared for college work. We have a long way to go. We must make education more of a central part of life in Dallas for everyone. It should be an identified part of any conference planning for the next century.

Any discussion of the future design and architecture of Dallas that does not include at least a mention of school design in the conference plans is missing what is probably THE major building block for the future. Attention must be given to having school buildings that are centrally located in their communities, well designed, and built following the highest standards of sustainability. Dallas should never again have newly built schools with leaking roofs within 10 years!

The 21st Century City Conference plans speak about seeking "a more humane city." Such advances for Dallas will never happen if public schools are not included in the search!

Saturday, October 30, 2010

On 10-28-10 State Representative Eric Johnson of Dallas, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and Big Thought, along with many others concerned about our Dallas schools, sponsored a showing of “Waiting for Superman.”

It was a very good evening. The most critical reality that emerged that evening, after the obvious that "something must be done," was that before any long lasting progress happens in our schools they all must provide complete public transparency related to student enrollments by grade, demographics of all children served, and monies spent.

Such data must be easy to locate on every school and school district web site. It must include information that is already easily available in every schools' records. It only needs to be made public. It should include student enrollment by grade, including graduation numbers. Such data must be reported annually and go into one large spreadsheet covering a minimum of 10 years of history. Four measurements of the graduation rate and student movement should be calculated on the spreadsheet and then graphed annually to illustrate progress, as reflected in this graph for Dallas ISD:

Once school culture becomes aware that such numbers will be made public, changes in priorities will evolve. More work will happen to motivate students to stay in school and succeed.

Such transparency will be a central tool for the supermen and women who are already working to save our schools. With it they will be able to assess how bad things are, create solutions, like the School Archive Project, and then follow the progress year by year as things improve, or as design changes are needed in any project.

Hopefully here in Texas, due to the data already publically available on the Texas Education Agency web site, we can have much of this information more quickly available for every school and school district. The major thing missing on the TEA web site is a simple multi-year spreadsheet for every school and school district. If all goes well, a legislative remedy will be possible within the year.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

﻿﻿﻿ ﻿﻿﻿This photo was taken 4:30 PM, 10-20-10, at Clarendon/Westmoreland intersection in Dallas. The sign directs people to Martin Weiss Recreation Center for early voting.﻿﻿

It is never right for a teacher to tell their students for whom they themselves are voting. However, such questions are a priceless opportunity for a teacher to speak of the power of the vote. This is a time to talk of the absolute necessity that people in positions of authority never try to influence those over whom they have authority regarding such a precious right. It is also a time to speak of the absolute necessity for every adult citizen to vote and be involved in the decisions made in our democracy.

This afternoon many of my students saw me with the above sign as I worked about two miles from our school to encourage Dallas citizens in voting early. This work was near the closest early voting location in our area, a location that is not marked from the nearby 6-lane road.

Hopefully these efforts during Dallas early voting will send the right message. Free choice is priceless! We must educate ourselves to best preserve our ability to choose. We must vote based on reasoned choices for our democracy to work! (Note: this effort resulted in a 40% increase in the early votes cast at Weiss Recreation Center nearby that was being pointed to with the sign.)

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Professor Kwame Anthony Appiah wrote a powerful article, originally printed in the Washington Post, that was re-printed today in the Dallas Morning News: "Accepted now, unforgivable later."

He asked a critical question for the future as we will look back on what we are now allowing to happen: "What were we thinking?" We need to be asking such questions now. Much suffering could be avoided!

While Professor Appiah listed four "contenders for future moral condemnation," he left out our nation's high school dropout rate. The scandalous reality is that in 2010 less than 70% of our U.S. students are finishing high school within 4 years? This disaster certainly merits being a contender for future moral condemnation. In too many urban school districts the graduation percentage is even less than 50%!

In 20 years hopefully graduation rates will significantly improve so we can be looking back at current numbers and exclaim: “What were we thinking!”

It is such a “What were we thinking?” question that is at the heart of the most successful dropout prevention efforts. In 2005 the School Archive Project was started at a Dallas ISD middle school. It started with the bolting of a 350-pound vault to the school lobby floor to function as a time capsule. It holds letters parents write to their child about their dreams for their child, and a second letter written by that student to themselves about their own dreams and goals. Both these letters are placed by the student into one self-addressed envelope that will be retrieved at the class 10-year reunion. Students know that at this same reunion they will be invited to speak to the then current 8th grade students about their recommendations for success. They are warned to be prepared for questions such as “What would you do differently if you were 13 again?”

As Professor Appiah says: “… we'll be better off for anticipating the question.”

That has been proven in the School Archive Project.

The first high school that began getting most of the School Archive Project students in 2005 had averaged a 34% graduation rate from 2000 through 2007. Then the graduation rate began to go up! By the time the Class of 2010 graduated the graduation rate had risen to over 60% due to this future focus and other improvements!

The Archive Project began to spread in 2009 due to the results being seen, and the negligible cost since such letter writing fits easily within normal lesson plans. Now six larger, 500-pound vaults have been bolted to the lobby floors in 6 more Dallas ISD schools. Such a vault in a place of honor, with hundreds of letters being archived each year in it, and passed many times every day by all students, sends a constant reminder of the need to work and plan for the future. Ten-year class reunion planning changes the student perspective about the passing of time.

The power of focusing on the future, and questions of accountability, will change our culture more than anything money can buy. That is the power of preparing every child to answer, 10 years after middle school, that priceless question:

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Beginning with the Dallas ISD enrollment for 2005/2006 the 9th grade enrollment bulge began to go down.

For the decade ending with the 2005/2006 school year the 9th grade enrollment had averaged over 14,700 students. Meanwhile the average 8th grade enrollment had only been 11,025. This made the "9th grade bulge rate" to be 33.3% more students than were in the average 8th grade class for DISD during these years. This was caused by students being poorly prepared for high school who then repeated the 9th grade in exceptionally large numbers. The bar chart below illustrates this pattern in Dallas ISD, a pattern repeated in most school districts in Texas. For all of Texas, from 1997 to 2008, the average "9th grade bulge rate" was 18%.

The above bar chart illustrates the 9th grade bubble/bulge which is now less than half as severe as the above graph indicates. With the Dallas ISD enrollment as of 10-14-10, taken from https://mydata.dallasisd.org/SL/SD/ENROLLMENT/Default.jsp, the "33.3% bulge" of the decade prior to 2005/2006, has been lowered to below 12% with the current 20010/2011 enrollment! This is a significant reflection of the reasons our dropout rates are going down! Below is the graph showing this progress by year:
﻿

Ninth grade bulge history in Dallas ISD

﻿ In the process of the above documented progress, the number of girls related to the number of boys has also become significantly more balanced combined with the lowering of the dropout rate.

The 9th grade enrollment for Dallas ISD in 2004-2005, as reflected in the TEA data base online, shows that 52.7% of 9th grade enrollment was male. This was probably mostly due to the higher retention rate for boys. That was 6 years ago. As of 10-14-2010 the current Dallas ISD enrollment indicates that only 51.7% of the 9th grade enrollment is male. This represents a 41% improvement. The 5.4 percentage point difference between the male and female numbers in 2004/2005 is now lowered 41%, to a 3.2 percentage point difference as of the 10-14-2010 enrollment.

The 12th grade enrollment change is even more significant. In 2004/2005 the 12th grade enrollment was only 45.9% male in Dallas ISD. Since then the male 12th grade enrollment has grown to 48.2% of the senior class enrollment as of 10-14-2010. Thus the 8.2 percentage point spread between male and female senior class enrollment from the years before 2005/2006 has shrunk 61% within the past 5 years to a spread of only 3.6%. This 61% improvement within 5 years, in equalizing the balance between the number of boys and girls, is significant progress!

The dropout rate progress in Dallas ISD is positively affecting many factors in the lives of our students, and in the life in our city. The many positive results from lowering the DISD dropout rate will be much more valuable to our city that any other single civic improvement that is possible.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Last night at SMU was fascinating! Jim Lehrer spoke about history in Dallas and many events directly related to media ethics. All seats in Caruth Auditorium were taken with chairs on the stage for the overflow! His covering of Dr. Martin Luther King's trip to Dallas in 1968 was exceptionally instructive.

However, just as amazing was to survey online media and blogs this morning and to find only one short tweet about last nights lecture: 'Final words: "I am not in the entertainment business" Jim Lehrer#sammons'

Why is so little online coverage/discussion given to this powerful snapshot of Dallas History? It appears that the sometimes painful exploration of history may have failed while other "entertainment" wins.

But Dr. Hinojosa knows that the real super heroes are our students. It is the students who do the needed work to achieve graduation, often with honors while living in poverty with very difficult family situations. DISD must motivate and support them. With an ever increasing transparency as to what is happening within DISD, combined with an active district-wide focus by students on their own futures, DISD will see this progress continue.

Our students have no time to wait for a super hero. Their future is being formed now! Progress must happen now. There can be no "waiting for Superman."

Saturday, September 25, 2010

On 9-25-10 an exceptionally positive presentation was given at the DMAHL exhibit in the Nature & Science Museum on the State Fair Grounds. The first four Hispanic members of the DISD school board spoke of the individual years they served on the board during the years since 1969. It was an exceptionally powerful exchange of ideas and history. This was the first time these four pioneers had ever all sit down together to discuss this shared history as DISD School Board members. In addition to being a reflection of DISD history, this was a powerful affirmation of growing up Hispanic and pushing for equal rights, a process still evolving.

Below is the schedule for the next few weeks of the Texas State Fair for DMAHL presentations, including today's presentations and the names of the speakers. All presentations are being video-taped for the archives of the Dallas Mexican American Historical League, and hopefully will be available to the public through the www.dmahl.org web site now under construction. These State Fair presentations are open to the public and scheduled on the second floor of the Nature and Science Museum at Fair Park, near the DMAHL exhibit. More exhibit details are athttp://www.natureandscience.org/exhibits/crozier_tech.asp .

Friday, September 24, 2010

While we are in the middle of the Michael Hinojosa job application for superintendent in Las Vegas, one thing is certain, most students in both Dallas and Las Vegas are not watching. What are students worried about? Their interests go to the millions of issues created by social networks and advertising media that occupy the evenings and weekends of our children: video games, movies, purchases, passing time with friends and family, and occasionally some study.

Our goal as teachers is to tilt those millions of interests so that school work and study gain in popularity. Without a more realistic vision of their futures by our students, that will never happen.

It is not a gamble to spend more energy and time focusing our students onto their own lives 10 years into the future. Until that future vision is more real, until students can easily and credibly talk about it by the time they are finishing middle school, cities like Dallas and Las Vegas will both continue to have only about half of their students graduating high school within 4 years.

Hopefully somewhere, someday, a superintendent will cut these dropout rates in half within 6 years. It will only be done using some of the methods from the School Archive Project.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

What is happening in Las Vegas carries some lessons for the School Archive Project.

Clark County School District has been as manipulative and misleading as any school district in the public reporting of their dropout rates! As recently as 2-26-10 they have publicly claimed

(http://ccsd.net/news/pdf/20100226-2042989254.pdf ): “The overall dropout rate for ninth through twelfth grade students in the Clark County School District (CCSD) has improved for the second consecutive year, down to 4.6 percent in 2008-09 from 5.8 percent in 2007-08.”

The real dropout rates are much closer to 46%!

A long history of similar manipulative communications in Dallas ISD have blogs repeatedly accusing Dr. Hinojosa as being responsible for dropout rate disasters that plagued DISD long before he came in 2005. The real DISD dropout rates were simply never made public. Still, since 2005, significant progress has been made within Dallas ISD as reflected in the graph at http://www.studentmotivation.org/DallasISD.htm#graph .

It is strongly recommended that the finalist chosen for the superintendent position demand that Clark County School District clearly communicate their real dropout numbers to the public. They should demand this before they accept the position. It will lead to the greatest progress possible in Clark County and will help them avoid the groundless, mindless criticism that Dr. Hinojosa is receiving on Dallas blogs.

Once such dropout rate transparency is given, the power and progress of the School Archive Project can much more easily be proven. The power of focusing a student into full ownership of their own history and future will be seen.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

The morning of 9-11-10, School Board Trustee Eric Cowan, Pinkston Principal Norma Villegas, DISD Superintendent Dr. Michael Hinojosa, and Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert posed together before they boarded a bus to knock on doors and bring back students who had not yet returned to school. They are standing in front of the School Archive, a 540-pound vault bolted to the floor in the Pinkston High School lobby a few weeks earlier. It is part of a 10-year time-capsule and class reunion/mentoring project that is helping more students graduate through a constant reminder of their own plans for the future. This will be the first year for the School Archive Projects starting at both Pinkston and Edison.

Here are the instructions for starting a School Archive Project that were shared with Edison Middle School staff, which are, with a few changes for 4 years in a high school, the same 8 steps shared with Pinkston staff:

1. All students and parents write a letter the first month of school. The first meetings with parents will involve a description of the School Archive Project and the need for them to write a letter to their child about their dreams for their child. They should write stories from their family history providing the roots from which they are sending their child into the world, as well as their dreams and hopes for their child. They should write about how they are willing to help their child achieve these goals. This letter may someday be a priceless possession for their child, and even their grand children, and great grand children. It will be a document for the family history just as the letters their children will write may also become valuable family history documents. These parental letters are then used by students to write their own letters to themselves in Language Arts classes about their plans for the future. Such letters will help students focus on their critical long term goals.

2. Both these letters, the parent's letter and the student's letter, are then placed together into one envelope. Each student seals their envelope and places their name and home address on it. These envelopes are placed into the School Archive, 530-pound vault, bolted to the floor in the school lobby in a location passed by all students many times each day.

3. These envelopes stay in the vault during the middle school years, until the last month of 8th grade, just before students leave for high school. Hopefully what these letters represent is a common topic of conversation during the middle school years. Teachers may use the existence of this letter, and the plans for future letters and the eventual Class Reunion, in times where future focus and motivation may be needed to help a student focus on work.

4. The letters are pulled from the vault the last month of 8th grade, returned to the students, to be used to write a second set of letters by both parents and students. Their dreams and life goals are updated to focus 10-years into the future. Both new letters are then placed into another self-addressed envelope.

5. This time the students themselves place their envelopes onto the shelf for their class inside the School Archive Vault. This happens on “Archiving Day,” a day at the end of 8th grade when 8th grade students pose with the class in which they wrote their letters for a photo. They stand together, in front of the School Archive Vault, holding their letter. After the photo they place the letter into the vault themselves. They know they will receive their letters back as they return for their 10-year 8th grade class reunion.

6. They each receive two copies of the photo taken that day, one for them and one for their parents. On the back of the photo are the details of the Archive Project including the estimated dates and details for their 10-year 8th grade class reunion.
7. It is recommended that the 10-year reunions happen the week of Thanksgiving. Then the current students will have 6 months to digest what they hear before they write their own final 10-year letters focusing 10 years into their own future. A school tradition has been established.

8. The details on the back of the photo include the fact that, at the Class 10-year Reunion, they will also be invited to speak with the then current 8th grade classes. They will be asked to talk about their recommendations for success. They should be prepared for questions from the decade younger students such as: "What would you do differently if you were 13 again?"

Saturday, August 14, 2010

This past week we had one 540-pound vault bolted to the floor in the lobby of both Edison Middle School and Pinkston High School in Dallas. This now means that starting this year almost 100% of the students at both Pinkston and Sunset high schools will have the possibility of going thorough the Archive Project letter writing process four times, once upon entering middle school and again on leaving, and once again on entering high school and again on leaving. It was a very good week! Here are the instructions shared with Edison staff on Thursday which, with a few changes, are the same 8 steps shared with Pinkston staff:

1. All students and parents write a letter the first month of school. The first meetings with parents will involve a description of the School Archive Project and the need for them to write a letter to their child about their dreams for their child. They should write stories from their family history providing the roots from which they are sending their child into the world, as well as their dreams and hopes for their child. They should write about how they are willing to help their child achieve these goals. This letter may someday be a priceless possession for their child, and even their grand children, and great grand children. It will be a document for the family history just as the letters their children will write may also become valuable family history documents. Such letters will help students focus on their critical long term goals.

2. Both these letters, the parent's letter and the student's letter, are then placed together into one envelope. Each student seals their envelope and places their name and home address on it. These envelopes are placed into the School Archive, 540-pound vault, bolted to the floor in the school lobby in a location passed by all students many times each day.

3. These envelopes stay in the vault during the middle school years, until the last month of 8th grade, just before students leave for high school. Hopefully what these letters represent is a common topic of conversation during the middle school years. Teachers may use the existence of this letter, and the plans for future letters and the eventual Class Reunion, in times where future focus and motivation may be needed to help a student focus on work.

4. The letters are pulled from the vault the last month of 8th grade, returned to the students, to be used to write a second set of letters by both parents and students. Their dreams and life goals are updated to focus 10-years into the future. Both new letters are then placed into another self-addressed envelope.

5. This time the students themselves place their envelopes onto the shelf for their class inside the School Archive Vault. This happens on “Archiving Day,” a day at the end of 8th grade when 8th grade students pose with the class in which they wrote their letters for a photo. They stand together, in front of the School Archive Vault, holding their letter. After the photo they place the letter into the vault themselves. They know they will receive their letters back as they return for their 10-year 8th grade class reunion.

6. They each receive two copies of the photo taken that day, one for them and one for their parents. On the back of the photo are the details of the Archive Project including the estimated dates and details for their 10-year 8th grade class reunion.

7. It is recommended that the 10-year reunions happen the week of Thanksgiving. Then the current students will have 6 months to digest what they hear before they write their own final 10-year letters focusing 10 years into their own future. A school tradition has been established.

8. The details on the back of the photo include the fact that, at the Class 10-year Reunion, they will also be invited to speak with the then current 8th grade classes. They will be asked to talk about their recommendations for success. They should be prepared for questions from those decade younger students such as: "What would you do differently if you were 13 again?"

Friday, August 6, 2010

The new, 8-4-2010, Texas Education Agency AYP (Acceptable Yearly Progress) Report, at http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/ayp/2010/distcampfinal10.pdf, is additional powerful documentation of the superiority of the 15 non-magnet high schools on the south side of Dallas over the 7 similar DISD high schools on the north side. (See Page 48 in this report for DISD.)

While there are individual parts of the AYP report that must be strongly questioned, the overall pattern of the 15 non-magnet south side high schools doing much better than the 7 non-magnet high schools on the north side of Dallas is clear. The data below is taken from the above linked AYP report.

This AYP report shows that only 2 of 7 north side high schools made AYP, or 28.6%, while 5 out of 15 of the south side made AYP, or 33%. While this is not a big difference, when you count the reasons given for each school not meeting AYP, a very strong pattern emerges.

On the north side there were a total of 12 reasons for not meeting AYP spread among the 5 schools for an average of 2.4 reasons in each of these 5 schools. On the south side there were a total of 13 reasons given for the 10 schools not meeting AYP for an average of 1.3 reasons spread among these 10 school.

Then you look for more patterns and see that only 1 out of 5 north side schools did not make AYP for only one reason. On the south side there were 7 out of 10 schools that did not make AYP for only one reason.

Finally you notice that three north side schools, (43%), had three reasons for not making AYP! NONE of the south side south side high schools had three reasons for not making AYP!

How can Dallas media speak of a "North-South Gap" wherein the North is always superior? They can only do it by avoiding any reporting in print on the repeated academic patterns indicating a different gap, one with the south side on top!

All DISD schools and students must do better, must constantly improve. Transparency helps that to happen.

Monday, August 2, 2010

Some of the most prominent Dallas media continue to engage in "body language" promoting the "Dallas Myth" that DISD schools on the north side of Dallas always perform better than those on the south side of Dallas. They do this by refusing to adequately present the overwhelming evidence of significant indications that schools on the south side of Dallas are better than schools on the north side of Dallas. The southern half of Dallas will be defined by this map.

This week the new TEA ratings came out. They show that there is over a 100% greater probability for a DISD non-magnet high school on the north side of Dallas to be rated UNACCEPTABLE that for a DISD non-magnet high school on the south side of Dallas to have such a rating. In this north/south division we will use this map from the Dallas Morning News North-South Dallas Project pages. These ratings also show that only one of the 4 remaining (i.e. not rated UNACCEPTABLE) north side DISD high schools, Jefferson, received their rating by having "met absolute standards," without using TPM, or other related rating aids. Meanwhile, for the 15 non-magnet DISD high schools on the south side of town, 7 of them received their acceptable ratings by having "met absolute standards."

TEA ratings show 3 (43%) of the 7 non-magnet DISD high schools on the north side of Dallas (Conrad H.S. must be added) are rated as unacceptable: Bryan Adams, Hillcrest, and North Dallas High School. The same TEA ratings show that only 3 (20%) of the 15 non-magnet DISD high schools on the south side of Dallas are rated as unacceptable: Samuell, Carter and A. Maceo Smith.

It was documented that significantly higher percentages of south side 9th grade students were making it to the 12th grade from 2005 up to the present. In 2008/2009 Oak Cliff was even 11 percentage points over North Dallas in this measurement! Look closely at the graph on the last page linked above. Note that the 6 North Dallas high schools used in this rating (Conrad was too new to be included) ALMOST caught up with Oak Cliff in this promotion rate with the 2009/2010 school year. The Dallas Morning News has not mentioned this measurement of progress for the south side in print. It appears they do not want to acknowledge how far behind the North Dallas schools were for several years, and still are!

Now, with the new TEA ratings, a new and more solid indication is available. TEA shows a more significant measurement wherein 43% of the north side high schools are rated unacceptable while only 20% of the south side schools are so rated. Also, only 25% (one) of the remaining 4 north side high schools were able to make their rating by meeting absolute standards, i.e. without the TMP or related help. On the south side over 58% (7) of the remaining 12 south side high schools were able to make their rating by meeting absolute standards.

The time has long passed for these differences to be publicly shared in major Dallas print and television media. The failure for this to happen shows "body language" indicating the media want to do nothing that may damage the old Dallas myth that the south side is somehow "worse" than the north side.

It remains to be seen if the Dallas Morning News will acknowledge IN PRINT that the south side of Dallas has made tremendous progress in several educational areas while the north side appears to have fallen back.

The good news remains that, overall, the children of Dallas are ALL making progress. Dropout rates are down and graduation rates are up. The progress must continue!

We must allow this north/south gap debate to be a form of entertainment, painfully reflecting the ongoing history of Dallas where still not enough has changed. The REAL WORK must continue in the classrooms and dining rooms all over Dallas, work for the futures of ALL our students.

Friday, July 2, 2010

The first step is dropout rate transparency. Every school district should have a multi-year enrollment by grade spreadsheet online for each school, with graduation numbers for each year.

High dropout rates seen with such transparency will initially make people angry, but it gives a place to start. Progress can then be tracked from data that is already being collected, but is simply data not visible in this format online for US public schools. Dropout rate patterns and progress will now be more clearly exposed.

The second step is to understand that our students must want to stay in school for the right reasons, not because the classroom is an effective detention facility! Students must be focused on their own futures in as concrete and physical a way as is possible. They will better envision the value of education.

To achieve the future focus a Dallas middle school started the School Archive Project in 2005. It is a 10-year time capsule and class reunion project. It involves a 350-pound vault bolted to the floor in the school lobby to function as the 10-year time-capsule. The School Archive holds letters 8th grade students write to themselves about their history and plans for the future. Students can place several letters into their envelope for the vault. In addition to the letter to themselves, they can include letters from their parents, or a teacher, about their dreams for the student.

At the end of the year, before students go on to high school, there is a small ceremony wherein students pose in front of the School Archive, with their Language Arts Class, holding their sealed letters for a photo. They then place their letters inside the vault.

Students receive a copy of this photo with information on the back about their 10-year class reunion. They are reminded that they will be invited at that 10-year reunion to speak with then current 8th grade classes about their recommendations for success. They are warned to prepare for questions such as; “Would you do anything differently if you were 13 again?”

Thinking of answering such a question in 10 years helps students realize the value of current school work. They must build their own futures. Nobody is going to do it for them.

The first students to write letters for the School Archive graduated in 2009 as members of the largest 12th grade class in over a decade! The Class of 2010 then significantly improved the graduation rate of the Class of 2009!

This project has now spread to 6 schools within Dallas ISD. It is a simple project helping teachers do what teachers have always done, focus students onto their own futures.

At a cost that is about a dollar per child per year, this is a project all schools should have. It only requires one dedicated teacher as project manager who is also interested in motivating students to write more, to better understand the flow of time and history, and to graduate.

Bill Betzen
The School Archive Project
www.studentmotivation.org
It is requested that you share any improvements to the School Archive Project you may develop.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

The great news is that Sunset High School in Dallas gave 483 diplomas to their Class of 2010. That is 76 more graduates than were in the Class of 2009, and the largest graduation class ever! The "raw" graduation rate, based on total 9th grade enrollment four years earlier, went from 49.4% last year to 60.8% for the Class of 2010 based on the 483 number. It is wonderful progress!! (This 483 number was taken from the 483 names that were listed on the Sunset graduation program. It will probably not exactly match the number that will ultimately be the official number of graduates, but it will be close.)

Due to the decreasing number of 9th grade failures and the growing upper grade class enrollments, it is almost certain Sunset will achieve a 70% graduation within the next few years. It is now possible to see an 80% graduation rate is even being within sight!

The reason these achievements are so significant is that during the 8 year period, from the Class of 2000 to the Class of 2007, the average graduation rate (calculated as the percentage of the 9th grade enrollment four years earlier who received a diploma) was 34% for Sunset High School. The graduation rate for the Class of 2010 is now 60%! That is over 25 percentage points higher!

Does anyone know of another Texas public high school who has made this much progress?

The reasons for the progress are multiple. A dynamic principal and staff are the central reason. They are future focused. They have emphasized that focus on the future by starting their own School Archive Project in 2009, but their future focus was present long before that happened. As of 2009 all the feeder middle schools sending students into Sunset now also have School Archive Projects. Once Sunset achieves the 70% raw graduation rate they will have doubled what had been their average graduation rate for the eight years up to and including the Class of 2007. That is amazing!!! (See http://www.studentmotivation.org/DallasISD/#sunset for the enrollment by grade history for Sunset. It is not yet updated with the most recent 2010 numbers.)

Saturday, May 15, 2010

An article was published this morning in the Dallas Morning News titled "In school, putting plans for life on paper." It was written by Mercedes Olivera, Dallas Morning News and published on page 4 of the Metro section for Saturday, 5-15-10:

"It was a ritual unlike any other at most public schools.

This week, eighth-graders each lined up at Quintanilla Middle School in northern Oak Cliff and placed a white envelope inside a 500-pound vault bolted to the floor in the lobby.

Inside the envelope was a letter, written over the course of one hour to three days, containing the students' past, present and – they hope – future.

Alejandra Calderón said she cried when she wrote hers. She wants to be an obstetrician when she grows up and wrote that in her letter.

The simple act of writing down her goal may have sparked an image of her father, who also wrote down what he wanted for his daughter the day she was born.

"Either a lawyer or a doctor," Julio Calderón said, recalling what he wrote that day.

He said he wants more for his children than he did for himself. "There were a lot of things I could've done and didn't," he said.

Natalia Hernández also cried thinking about ..."

The article goes on to speak of more Archive Project details. It was a very positive article that hopefully will encourage more schools to start their own School Archive Projects. Until then, we can celebrate with the students we are honored to serve. This year at Sunset High School the raw graduation rate for the class of 2010 will represent more than 55% of their 9th grade enrollment from 2006/2007. That is a 6% increase from the previous graduation rate record last year of 49%, and almost 20% higher than the average 9th grade graduation rate for the past 10 years at Sunset of only 36.3%!

We have come a long way and still have a long way to go. Let's celebrate breaking the 50% barrier and work to get well past the 60% barrier ASAP at Sunset High School! (The Sunset enrollment history to date is at http://www.studentmotivation.org/DallasISD/#sunset.)

Saturday, April 3, 2010

This morning a Dallas Morning News Columnist, Mr. Ragland, wrote an opinion piece on the facts surrounding the failure of Dallas ISD to win the Broad Award in 2010. He made a bet that DISD will also not win the Broad Award in 2011. I venture that there is about an 80% chance he is correct. However, by 2014 at the latest, Dallas ISD will win the Broad Award! DISD is heading in the right direction to win the Broad Award!

In his article Mr. Ragland quoted DISD leaders speaking about significant academic progress made within the past 4 years by DISD students. Dropout rate progress was not mentioned.

Other school districts on the "road to Broad" have pushed academic progress forward causing many struggling student to drop out under the pressure, thereby raising dropout rates. The greatest achievement within DISD is that record academic progress is NOT being made at the cost of a rising dropout rate. Instead, as DISD grades rise the graduation rates are also going up! Dropout rates are going down!

Three of the four most important positive measurements pointing toward rising graduation rates are now at the highest recorded levels in DISD for over a generation! The fourth measurement is also heading up, and will achieve the same "highest in over a generation" level within two years!

It shows that the 9th to 10th grade promotion rate has gone up to 75% this year, the Cumulative Promotion Index is now up to 54%, and the 9th to 12th grade promotion rate has now gone up to over 54%. These are all the best measurements in over a generation!

Finally, if you look higher on this same web site you will find the enrollment by grade spreadsheet that generated this graph. It shows that 9th grade enrollment has gone down from an average of over 14,000 students every year prior to 2007/2008, to just 12,300 this year. That reflects that fewer 9th graders are failing and repeating 9th grade, another significant achievement in the past 4 years!

In spite of the fact that total DISD enrollment has gone down over 2% since 2005/2006, the current 10th grade enrollment is one of the largest in a decade. The current 11th and 12th grade enrollments are the largest in DISD history!

While DISD still has a long way to go, there are many very good things happening! DISD students are to be congratulated! As this progress continues, within the next four years DISD students will win the Broad Award!

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

The power of story was reinforced again by research published February, 23, 2010 in the Journal of Family Life, and online at http://www.journaloffamilylife.org/doyouknow. It shows one of the major reasons that the School Archive Project is so successful, by reinforcing the focus on family history and the recording of family stories, in ultimately helping students stay in school. Here is the abstract:

Abstract

Family stories are theorized to be a critical part of adolescents' emerging identity and well-being, yet to date we know very little about adolescents' knowledge of their family history and intergenerational family stories. In this study, we expand our previous findings that pre-adolescent children who know more about their family history display higher levels of emotional well-being. Sixty-six broadly middle-class, mixed race, 14- to 16-year old adolescents from two-parent families were asked to complete a measure of family history, the "Do You Know..." scale (DYK), as well as multiple standardized measures of family functioning, identity development and well-being. Adolescents who report knowing more stories about their familial past show higher levels of emotional well-being, and also higher levels of identity achievement, even when controlling for general level of family functioning. Theoretical and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.

Monday, March 15, 2010

The answer to this issue is somewhere in the middle of current practice. We must test! Such feedback is critical. But should we give that feedback the undeserved power we are now giving testing? It is as if people outside the school system needed to think they understood everything happening inside schools, and now think testing does that.

Should the results of testing literally run our schools? Are the tests that accurate?

It appears people think these tests accurately represent everything our children need to know to succeed in the real world.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

The wisdom of Dr. Diane Ravitch has been rapidly exposed in news articles and on blogs over the past few weeks as her new book has been released. Here are her words, followed by the title of her new book I am in the process of reading. This publication may do more to help the public school children of the United States than any other book published in our life times. Dr. Ravitch writes in an article published 3-9-2010 in the Wall Street Journal:

Given the weight of studies, evaluations and federal test data, I concluded that deregulation and privately managed charter schools were not the answer to the deep-seated problems of American education. If anything, they represent tinkering around the edges of the system. They affect the lives of tiny numbers of students but do nothing to improve the system that enrolls the other 97%.

The current emphasis on accountability has created a punitive atmosphere in the schools. The Obama administration seems to think that schools will improve if we fire teachers and close schools. They do not recognize that schools are often the anchor of their communities, representing values, traditions and ideals that have persevered across decades. They also fail to recognize that the best predictor of low academic performance is poverty—not bad teachers.

What we need is not a marketplace, but a coherent curriculum that prepares all students. And our government should commit to providing a good school in every neighborhood in the nation, just as we strive to provide a good fire company in every community.

On our present course, we are disrupting communities, dumbing down our schools, giving students false reports of their progress, and creating a private sector that will undermine public education without improving it. Most significantly, we are not producing a generation of students who are more knowledgable, and better prepared for the responsibilities of citizenship. That is why I changed my mind about the current direction of school reform.

Ms. Ravitch is author of "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education," published last week by Basic Books.

On the same day that the above comments were published in the Wall Street Journal the Dallas Morning News published an editorial titled "DISD must act now to fix or close failing high schools." That editorial went on to list 10 high schools, some on that list due to out of date information.

That editorial was a perfect illustration of the dangers Dr. Ravitch is addressing. Anyone who claims they support the Dallas Morning News editorial must be able to address the issues Dr. Ravitch addresses. One of the most basic is to ask where it is proven that closing schools, or other plans being presented, helps children?

The Dallas ISD track record only indicates that closing a school and forcing the transfer of hundreds of students, as was done at Spruce High School, increases the potential for a higher dropout rate. The constantly raising promotion rate for the 6 Southeast Dallas high schools suddenly dropped 5 percentage points in 2008-2009 when Spruce was closed and reopened only for freshmen and sophomores. Allegedly the seniors and juniors were transferred to other Southeast Dallas high schools. Many students never made that transition. Who did that move help? See the graph at http://www.studentmotivation.org/dallasisd/#graph .

Yes, something must be done. Credibly connecting students with their own futures, and acknowledging that they themselves are in charge of that future, may be a first step.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

The crisis at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island is not the fight between the teachers union and school administration. That is only a distraction! The real crisis is the dropout rate. We must keep our focus where it belongs.

The 52% dropout numbers presented for Central Falls High are very familiar here in Dallas ISD. A 48% graduation rate would be a 4 percentage point improvement from the average 2009 graduation rate for Dallas ISD schools.

In 2005-2006 the total 9th grade enrollment was 14,680 for Dallas ISD. In 2009 there were 6,383 diplomas given out to that same class within Dallas ISD. That is a simple graduation rate of 43.5%. That was also the highest graduation rate for Dallas ISD in 4 years! It was a 2% improvement from 2008.

Thank God they are not firing the 10,800 teachers here in Dallas ISD! Instead we are working on a solution. There are dropout prevention projects all over our district. Current 2009/2010 enrollment for the 11th and 12th grades in all 32 high schools in Dallas ISD is 5% higher than it was in 2005/2006! This is an increase of 758 more upper class students during a time when the total district enrollment has gone down over 2%! Our graduation rate will continue to go up!

Our graduation rate will go up especially at two schools who used to have the lowest graduation rates in Dallas ISD: Sunset and Pinkston high schools. They are responsible for 417, or 55%, of this 758 student increase in upper grade enrollment. They are also the only high schools, from the 32 high schools in Dallas ISD, where almost half of their incoming freshmen have participated in the School Archive Project at the middle school level. That project helps students focus on their plans for 10 years into the future.

The following is a dropout prevention plan for Central Falls High School and it's feeder school, Calcut Middle School, based on what has been learned in Dallas since 2005. Each school needs to have staff meetings to discuss several future focused alternatives for their students, including the School Archive Project and the Freshman Transition Initiative. Have staff study the http://www.studentmotivation.org/ web site, as well as the http://www.freshmantransition.org/ web site, and any other similar projects, to prepare for the meeting. Invite staff to bring information about other future focused projects to more effectively provide their students with a realistic vision of their own futures. The goal is for students to much better understand how current classroom work relates to that future.

At the meeting staff will talk about the value of effectively focusing their students on their own futures. Donors should be easy to locate before the meeting who are willing to fund the needed vaults, as well as materials and/or training for the Freshman Transitions Initiative, if the teachers vote to try these projects. Both projects could easily work very well together, or separately.

If they decide on the School Archive Project then all students could start the process this year by writing letters before the end of the school year. These are letters students write to themselves about their lives and plans for the future. Parents should also be invited to write letters to their child about their hopes and dreams for their child. If parents are unable to write this letter another adult in the child's life, including a teacher, could write the letter. These letters by adults in the child's life are read by the student and then placed with their own letters inside the self addressed envelope each student places into the school vault. The 8th graders and the 12th graders would always be writing their letters with the focus being 10 years into the future.

Next year only the freshmen at Central Falls High, and the 6th graders at Calcut Middle School, would start the year by writing their letter for their respective school archives. Again their parents and/or adults in a students life would write an updated letter of their hopes for the child to be with the letter the student writes. These letters will be inside the child's envelope in the vault all during their high school or middle school years. At the end of 12th grade, or 8th grade, that letter would be pulled, and read for ideas as the students write their final letters for the vault. That letter would be placed by the students back into the school vault to wait for their class 10-year reunions.

Once the School Archive Project and/or the Freshman Transition Initiative were to start, a rapid change in attitude among students should be seen. Students will begin to realize that they are responsible for their own futures.

The teachers will be sending a priceless message to their students if they are able to tell them, "I look forward to seeing you at the 10-year reunion," as the students leave for the next level of education.

Everything that helps to create a family atmosphere in a school will be reinforced with these plans. It will all happen with the help of a vault turned into a time-capsule, and a plan focusing 10 years into the future.

About Bill

Retired middle school teacher & social worker with student motivation hobby. Resume at http://www.openadoption.org/bbetzen/resume.htm. The only other Bill Betzen online is his grandfather (1890-1969.) bbetzen@aol.com